It is necessary in almost every application of gears in various systems that the gears be of good quality and consistent configuration. It is not possible, nor is it necessarily desirable, for these gears be individually and manually inspected by workers. Rather, it is more desirable to provide an automated machine capable of making the appropriate inspection consistently and quickly.
The gear inspection must of necessity involve the verification of a variety of parameters. These parameters include the so-called “Double Flank” functional parameters (Fi″, fi″, Fr″, Aa″, Nick) that indicate a total radial composite deviation, and other parameters indicative of angular deviations, more specifically lead angle, lead angle variation, taper, and taper variation. As is known in the art, a dynamic inspection station for making all such verifications includes an expanding arbor or a post for supporting and measuring the gear to be checked, and two masters, i.e., a master roller gear on one side of the expanding arbor and a ‘gimbal’ master on the other side. The master roller gear meshes with the gear to be checked without backlash in a double flank arrangement, and is used to check the radial deviations, while the gimbal master has specially shaped teeth and allows the detection of angular deviations. Systems exist today which attempt to achieve a comprehensive system of quality and consistency verification.
However, having both master roller gears and gimbal masters, further to expanding arbors is costly, more specifically where different masters and arbor sizes are required to support the inspection of different gear manufacturing requirements. Additionally, the gimbal assembly must overcome inertia to follow the variation of the lead and taper angle of a gear, thus slowing down the inspection cycle.
Accordingly, a need exists today for an improved system and method for verifying quality and consistency of gears on a relatively high-speed basis.